Forge football fitness

Fitness has its own special language – aerobic, anaerobic, VO2 max, plyometrics – what do these words mean? How do they translate in to a football context? It’s hard deciphering this jargon even after a quick look on Wikipedia.

And therein lies the problem, according to Dutch conditioning expert, Raymond Verheijen. Why are coaches communicating with players in a language they don’t understand? Poor communication leads to poor performance – from both the coaches and players.

More after the break

“People often define fitness in non-football language. If you use non-football words when you talk about fitness, automatically you get non-football exercises to train fitness,” Verheijen explained to FFT.

“The biggest problem in football, with respect to fitness, is the exercises. Fitness is trained as something separate to football.”

Overloading training with separate technical and fitness sessions can lead to fatigue and injury. The solution? Combine the two disciplines and explain the training effects in terms the players understand.